


Heathens

by andygreen



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 21:50:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20071138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andygreen/pseuds/andygreen
Summary: Grant Ward and reader, based on “Heathens” by Twenty-One Pilots.





	Heathens

“_All my friends are heathens, take it slow. Wait for them to ask you who you know.”_

The communal area was cold. Whether it was the cement walls and floors or the temperature set lower than the cells for sleep on the other floor or the hardened criminals around her, you weren’t sure what the exact cause was. You were sitting on one of the benches against the wall, knees brought up to your chest and arms wrapped around your legs, resting your head against the wall to discreetly watch the people around you. Your eyes scanned every inch of the prison, every person in the room — prisoners and guards — to assess the situation, to assess the threat, just like S.H.I.E.L.D. taught you to do. Men and women larger than you, people with body counts much higher than yours, HYDRA monsters surrounded you and made your skin crawl.

“I haven’t seen you around here,” one man stated as he and two friends approached you on the bench. The three looked exactly like big dog HYDRA muscle, the soldiers sent to carry out the most heinous missions. Those easy ones, the guns; go here, shoot them, kill him, scare her, whatever, return. You’re pretty sure you recognized the one on the far right, you think you put him here. You know you put at least six people in here, that won’t go over well for you but thankfully none approached yet and you could buy a little more time for yourself to find what you were looking for.

“I haven’t seen you around ever,” another taunted and you knew where this was going. This really should be that “oh shit” moment where you wonder if you made a mistake but never once did that cross your mind. Never once did you doubt your decision, even when Director Coulson told you that you would. He was smart, so were you but sometimes love makes people do some crazy things. No one knows you, no one will recognize you, and there’s one thing that means—

“She’s a snitch.” And… there it is. You weren’t exactly a snitch, you weren’t here to gather intel for S.H.I.E.L.D. or anyone else, but you weren’t HYDRA either. Sending in a false prisoner to get information on the organization would be a good idea, one that might even be in play, but it didn’t involve you. You didn’t belong here, you knew that and so did they. At least with an ally, someone on your side, would help you out now but you were in it alone. With a sharp inhale, you closed your eyes waiting for the inevitable but nothing happened; not the way you expected.

“She’s with me,” said a firm voice, one full of authority that made the three men stalk off, one that you recognized immediately. The men looked unhappy to be shooed away and you knew they’d try again when you were alone. Your eyes peeled open to meet those brown ones that could always read you like a book and you breathed out a sigh of relief, a hint of a smile forming. A flip in your stomach made you shiver and nothing felt right, not the way you wanted this to feel. “Good to see you again, Agent (L/N).”

“You too, Ward.”

“_Just because we check the guns at the door doesn’t mean our brains will change from hand grenades.”_

The way he moved through the halls, through the communal areas, and through the rest of the prison set you on edge. He was the head of HYDRA, it was clear, it was painful to see the man you cared for so deeply so far gone. The man you knew as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and your partner was not the man smirking at you from across the room. These monsters were stripped of weapons, technology, systems of communication to one another, yet it was like nothing had changed for them at all. No amount of classes, of time locked behind bars, or spent in solitary confinement had any influence at all.

“Hey, Ward. Contraband sweep at 10,” the voice of a man you remember reading up on for his ability to find out anything about anyone spoke, hearing Ward’s name drawing your attention away from the plate of food in front of you. You pushed some of the mixed vegetables around, keeping your head down but your eyes on the four men at the table across from you. You blocked out the chatter from the two women at your table but you still couldn’t hear anymore. He nodded his head and spoke to the others, proving once and for all that no amount of sweeps or programs could change these people. The food in front of you was soon abandoned, unable to stomach anymore when you heard the two women speak in vivid detail of the crimes they had committed.

You knew that declaring yourself a loyalist of HYDRA to Director Coulson, in the presence of over forty agents, was the worst thing you could do for yourself. You knew you wouldn’t be able to come back from this, there would be no way out of this black site, there would be no warm welcome for you there or waiting for you back home. There was no going back home. There was only this now. This prison in a hidden location, far from the rest of the world where no one knew where you were, surrounded by enemies with nothing but pain and fear waiting for you.

This wasn’t a rehabilitation center. This wasn’t a good place. The people filling the bunks in the cells were too far gone for redemption. There wouldn’t be a release date or a lawyer pleading a case, this wasn’t a public prison. This was a place to die.

_“You’re lovin’ on the psychopath sitting next to you, you’re lovin’ on the murderer sitting next to you.”_

With your head resting against Grant’s shoulder, sitting alone with him in his cell, you felt safe for the first time in two months since you left your life of freedom. This prison seemed to only get scarier, colder, harder, when you thought you’d be able to adjust and adapt to your new life. You were beginning to think that adapting to a life as a false HYDRA soldier wasn’t possible, you couldn’t just drop your core values and become an entirely different person. His hand was placed over yours, thumb tracing circles absentmindedly on the back of your hand, giving you a bit of comfort and warmth. Safety, comfort, warmth… those were unfamiliar feelings to you now, a rarity that only came to you in the presence of your old partner.

“You never said it back,” Grant’s whisper broke twenty minutes of silence and you lifted your head from his shoulder to meet his gaze. When your eyes met, you knew exactly what you meant and furrowed eyebrows of confusion faded away as an expression of understanding took over. The memory of a night on a mission together flashed in the back of your mind: the hotel room you shared, a smear of blood on your upper arm from where you were grazed by a flying bullet, his voice breaking through the silent night. You nodded once, agreeing with him silently. You had just looked at him when he said it, couldn’t bring yourself to say anything, and thought about that night everyday for the past six months.

“I love you, too,” you whispered back, whole-heartedly and heavily. You didn’t think it needed to be said, you lied to your boss to come here for him, to see him, to be with him, surely that meant more than a few words. Either way, saying it released a weight from your shoulders you didn’t know you were carrying. He smiled, that easy-going, genuine smile you only saw when you two were alone and for just a second, you could see the good man you thought you knew before. Only he wasn’t that man, not now, not ever.

“_Why’d you come? You knew you should have stayed. I tried to warn you just to stay away.”_

“You shouldn’t be here, (Y/N),” Grant said in a quiet, rushed voice, looking both ways outside of the small room you two were currently occupying. There were too many people around and it was really ruining your chances of getting out safely. Grant knew that if you got hurt or killed, things would get really messy, really fast and he wasn’t all that ready for that outcome. Feral screams, fists meeting jaws, gunshots, explosions made it hard for you to hear the man just inches away from you but the sounds outside were starting to blur together. You shake your head, tears filled your eyes and you blinked them away with a glance to the ceiling.

“Why did you come here? You know how dangerous this place is, how dangerous these people are. I told you that. I told you to stay away from here, from me. HYDRA wants their soldiers back, they won’t have mercy on S.H.I.E.L.D. Not even I can save you now,” he spoke, voice full of pain and fear and desperation. He wanted nothing more than for you to be safe, far away from this war, even at the cost of never getting to see you again. You knew he was right, you were in so much danger and it only multiplied with the passing days. But you couldn’t turn back now, if you and Grant got separated now you would never see him again.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ward. I’m loyal to HYDRA, S.H.I.E.L.D. means nothing to me,” you lied convincingly, putting your personal feelings in a lockbox to be stored in the deepest nook of your soul. A small, unidentifiable box covered with camouflage to hide in plain sight but never be found, never again to be opened. It terrified him to hear you say that and go against everything you believed in. It terrified him so much more because he believed you. It terrified him so much more because he knew that you meant it.

“_Now they’re outside ready to bust. It looks like you might be one of us.”_

“HYDRA’s here, they’re breaching in ten… nine… eight…” you heard the countdown from outside the little supply closet off of a side hallway attached to the main hallway and soon to be exit point. You didn’t know what you were going to do, Grant didn’t know what you were going to do, you were unprepared like never before and you were hoping that playing it by ear would work to your advantage. It didn’t help to pray to a God, to a Goddess, to anyone… you were in this alone, with only the faith that Grant would help you if you needed it. You tried not to let your mind race or think of the worst case scenario but you knew who he was, he could very well leave you here to be captured or killed without so much as a second thought. You wanted to trust him.

When the bomb went off, taking out a good portion of one wall in the main hallway from the front main entrance of the building to the prison to let everyone out, chaos broke out. Prisoners left their cells, the common areas, medical to escape, giving no care to the guards they passed. It looked like a riot with chairs knocked over, clothes scattered on the floor, books left on tables with knocked over cups of water. The guards called in for reinforcements and S.H.I.E.L.D. showed up quickly in an attempt to squash the large scale escape. Grant tried so hard to convince you to leave, to surrender peacefully and tell the truth but you wouldn’t listen, not when you knew that meant you would never see him again.

The gun in your hand from the guard you knocked down felt too heavy, so much heavier than it ever had before, and you knew it was because of the consequences that came with this. You had used this same type of gun often, standard agent issued weapon, but it never felt so foreign in your hands as it did now. As you came face to face with another agent, a friend from the academy, and raised your gun, you knew you would never be able to come back from this or go home. Years of training and friendship with that man was being thrown out the window and you shouldn’t have felt a rush of excitement. You mouthed an apology to your friend, eyes trained on his, and squeezed the trigger, showing you truly were HYDRA now.

“Looks like Ward’s girl isn’t such a stiff after all. Who would have thought?” One HYDRA woman snarked, shooting a wink your way. She was the woman you were warned about, high ranking and well liked, but you didn’t care. You met it with a cold smirk, sparing one last look at your fallen friend before moving forward with the others, out of the hole in the wall and into the fresh air and dark night. This shouldn’t feel right, Grant’s guiding hand shouldn’t comfort you, the women you met in this prison shouldn’t be your new friends. Grant’s wicked grin and the symbol of HYDRA all around you shouldn’t be the sign of your new life.

“I’m going to kill her,” you whispered darkly to Grant when you were sitting next to each other on the aircraft taking you to your new home. As scary as this new version of you was to him, he looked forward to working with you still. Things were changing fast, no more snacks on missions for a peckish Fitz or Skye announcing gunshots during training sessions. This is your life now: murder, pain, blood, sweat, and tears. Hail HYDRA.


End file.
